I’ll take an Enemies-to-lovers, with a side of fake dating, one bed with a swoon worthy hero please!!!!

If you are like me, who a) hasn’t read this book (well I guess that’s not me anymore) but anyways who also b) loves everything I mentioned above than you NEEEEEED to pick up this book!

Let me tell you #bookstagram made me get it and it SAT on my shelves for MONTHS, before I finally picked it up to read and let me tell you I am so mad at myself for waiting to read this book!

So all of you who did NOT force me to read this, well we are no longer friends! Anyways

TSLD is a swoon worthy book honestly. In it we meet Aaron and Lina who are colleagues and enemies (or so Lina believes). Lina needs a date to her sisters wedding (honestly who wants to go to a wedding alone, not me) and Aaron jumps at the chance to be her date. Along the way Lina slowly starts to fall for Aaron just to learn he has been in love with her for YEARS!!! And to get the rest of the juicy stuff your going to need to read it for yourselves!

Release Date: AVAILABLE NOW
Book Info: Enemies to Lovers, Fake Dating , Unrequited Love (Crush), Single POV, Single Bed, Slow Burn, Open Door Romance
Steam Level: 🔥🔥🔥

Aᴀʀᴏɴ Bʟᴀᴄᴋꜰᴏʀᴅ is a top tier book boyfriend. Holy. This book was beyond perfect. The tension between them was palpable. And the steam, IYKYK🥵 I loved Lina's family and her best friend, Rosie.

This book is long at just under 500 pages, but once things started happening, it felt like a quick read! Usually I have a hard time with books over 400 pages and find I stop paying attention, but not with this one! Definitely one of my favorite romances, EVER!

Read this if you love:
• Workplace romance
• Grumpy/sunshine
• Enemies to lovers
• Steamy scenes

My second attempt at looking into hyped/Swoonie-nominated books with The Spanish Love Deception is a bust. But then again, I did sort of suspect it would be. I did hope I’d find something to like, given the amount of buzz around this one.
I won’t deny that Elena Armas has a very readable writing style. Even though I didn’t find myself enjoying much else, she managed to engage me for the most part, even if everything else fell rather flat.
Interestingly, while I’ve avoided reviews for this beyond some of the hype on Twitter (and vague, secondhand knowledge of Tiktok), I’ve now looked at them upon finishing, and some of the comps hit the nail on the head as to why I’m not a fan. It has the poor execution of enemies to lovers that turned me off The Hating Game (although I couldn’t even make it through that one, so this one is at least a minor step up) and the long-windedness of Mariana Zapata without any real substance. No shade to anyone who likes either/both of those authors/books and/or this one, but it definitely clicked why this book misfired with me so much.
I did like some elements of the characters, particularly Lina dealing with sexual harrassment. And I did have sympathy for Lina’s situation that leads to her deception. But I didn’t feel like she was all that interesting otherwise. And Aaron wasn’t that memorable either? He’s kinda your standard broody guy who is fascinated with the heroine for some reason. I just didn’t feel any chemistry between them, so them exchanging I love you’s (especially after pages and pages of nothing) just felt hollow.
Clearly, this is me not gelling with the book, and I feel a bit foolish for letting the hype influence me on this one without investigating further. But it’s not a bad book by any means, and I can understand why others enjoy it, objectively, even if it’s not my thing. If you love sloooow burn, enemies to lovers, or fake relationships, this might work better for you.

Review based on final copy.

This book was overhyped. I was expecting so much, especially because even before it got republished, everyone was raving about it. But it’s just so annoying and disappointing from page 1. Annoying female mc I cant even be bothered to remember her name right now. The narration is so off too, often falling for what I call newbie writer pitfalls when it comes to sentence construction. Anyway, this was an unpleasant read.

I first requested this because everyone was raving about it, and I love me some tropes of enemies to lovers. I don't know what book those reviewers read because I found this book odd and lacking chemistry. I was honsetly creeped out by Aaron in the beginning, out of the blue offering to help her after listening to her conversation with a friend, and knowing a lot of details about all her likes and dislikes after not talking to her for two years just gave me major red flags. Sure he messed up talking to her once but his attention to her made him seem more like a stalker. I wish we had dual perspectives in this book because then maybe I would have understood him better, we know nothing about him until 65% into the book. And when they first start hanging out and he barely talks to her, its even weirder, like heres your chance to explain everything or maybe just start new by just simply talking about anything and yet he only looks grumpy and frowns a lot. Also the constant description of his eye color got annoying, we get it you have blue eyes is there any other feature we could describe about him from time to time, or just leave out the color. This book was so slow and it was jarring in the 180 of Aaron's character and actions once they get to Spain. I wanted to enjoy this book so much and I was honestly just confused for most of it.

Despite all the hype THE SPANISH LOVE DECEPTION has received from TikTok, I found it confusing, overwritten, and extremely cliche. It felt like the author read THE HATING GAME (and only THE HATING GAME), though, "hey, I can do that," and produced this book in a matter of days. That's not to say it's necessarily a bad book or that it won't find its audience (it clearly has), but it feels like a book I've already read.

This is something that will sell itself. There is a large audience for this title and I'm sure it will fly off the shelves.

NetGalley ARC - To have your novel win the Goodreads Choice Award for Debut Novel is certainly an amazing accomplishment. However, I feel like this book came up short in so many ways and it could have been 150 pages shorter. I'll go ahead and start out with some of the things that I did enjoy about the book.

Catalina is a strong-willed, independent, capable woman. She also works in STEM and I love the representation. She can also hold a grudge like nobody’s business, and I can certainly appreciate that. She’s a spitfire and I truly did love her as a character. However, I’m a little lukewarm on the character trope of someone who is obviously attractive but "doesn't think I’m beautiful”. I feel like it’s a very YA trope and doesn’t sit well for an adult romance protagonist, especially given the rest of Catalina's personality.

Now that that’s been said…

There is absolutely no chemistry between Catalina and Aaron. I feel like this is due partly to the fact that we had little to no background information on Aaron until 65% of the way through the story and even after that, he had almost no personality. If this was an attempt at an office grump trope, he was certainly grumpy; however, it doesn’t mean that he had to be so boring.

We spent the entire time in Catalina's head, which gave us a very one-sided view of the relationship. I would have liked to see Aaron’s perspective to give context on his feelings and maybe help him grow a personality. This novel also had very little in terms of dialogue, which means we are limited to the things that Catalina is thinking and feeling and it was very much giving unreliable narrator. Overall, it was very repetitive and we could have been spared at least 100 pages of her inner monologue.

Also, the smut was very uncomfortable. I'm still not over the "wanting to feel her milk him" or however that transpired. Milking of any kind is so high on my list of “things that need to be banned from sex scenes”. I’m usually alright with reading through the smut portion of romance novels but this gave me the ick and now I can’t stop fixating on how much I didn’t like it.

Overall, it was a solid debut but a very average romance novel. As I mentioned before, it could have been significantly shorter. However, if you’re the type of person that can put some time and effort into reading a romance novel, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this.

Thank you to Atria Books for the Advanced Reader's Copy.

I am thankful for the opportunity to read and review, but this was not my cup of tea. I made it 30% before I could not finish. Thank you for the opportunity to review

Ahh!! I love this book so much. Everything from the characters to the story line. Beautifully written, cute, and funny.

If you enjoy slow burn romances this books is for you. I personally have a love hate relationship with this trope but it was okay this time. I've heard all about this book on tiktok, so I was excited to read it. I enjoyed the romance and the characters. Looking forward for new works by the author!

If you told me that the author of this book originally wrote this as The Hating Game fanfiction (50 Shades style), I would 100% believe you.

Catalina Martin needs a date for her sister’s wedding. Not because anyone expects her to have one, except now they do… because she lied and said she has a boyfriend. Co-worker and nemesis Aaron Blackford volunteers to fly to Spain with her for the wedding as her fake boyfriend, and given her lack of other options, Lina accepts his offer.

I could do without maybe 50-70 pages of the exposition. This book is SLOOOOOOOOW burn for sure. And how many times do we need to mention how BIG and LARGE and TALL Aaron Blackford is? I think we get it.

This couple definitely grew on me. The slow start almost deterred me (I briefly considered DNFing), but once we really got into it, the chemistry between Aaron and Lina was palpable. Would I recommend this book? Probably not. But so many have already read and loved it, so maybe I’m the problem. This book was good at its core, I just wish it was about 70-100 pages shorter.

Thanks so much to Atria Books for the advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review!

I loved this. Everything about this. Both, Aaron and Lina are characters I got very very attached to and more so characters I’ll never ever forget! I had the time of my life reading this heart felt romance. I cannot wait to read more from Elena armas in the future!

This story is so cute and I loved every minute of it! I see now why so many people are talking about this book! It is a must read.

I love a good enemies to lovers book!! This book was hyped a lot for me and it definitely lived up to the hype. It was a romcom but had more angst than I expected. It also had a “getaway” feel for those wanting to feel transported somewhere new. It was sexy and romantic and so well written!

This book was definitely worth the hype. A perfect fake dating romance. It started off a little slow but paid off.

<i>*This book was given to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review*</i>

This rom-com packed everything up in a suitcase and took me on vacation! While some of the exchanges were a little too much angst, the swooning was easily the best part! Aaron is my book boyfriend till the end of time. The sexual tension build-up, the soccer scene, the broken bed, gaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ah, the classic enemies to lovers tale! The Spanish Love Deception is such a fun book - featuring co-workers who make a deal to pretend to date each other to avoid other awkward situations. Parts of this story will make you smile and parts will absolutely tug at your heartstrings. A really great read!

✨Book Review✨

The Spanish Love Deception
By Elena Armas (@thebibliotheque)

I have a new book boyfriend, guys! Aaron Blackford has my heart. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t instalove for me, but by the end of this book I was hooked!

I loved this book from the beginning. It has all of the tropes I love—workplace romance, enemies to lovers, one bed, fake boyfriend. It made me want to hop on the first plane to Spain. I have my passport all ready to go! ✈️

I should have trusted the recommendations of @bookish.chels and @booksovrbros and read this months ago! And I’m so thankful to have friends like @jordans.book.club @ashleylardy and @poetry.and.plot.twists to read this with. I love love love our group chat and buddies reads! But not nearly as much as I love you three! 💕

I give this allllllllll the stars! I’ve already preordered The American Roommate Experiment as a birthday present to myself! Is it September yet?! 🗓

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(5)/5

There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this book! The story follows Catalina (Lina) and Aaron, two coworkers who hate each other (or do they?) but engage in a fake relationship over the course of Lina's sister's wedding celebration in Spain. Lina is traumatized from a bad breakup with troubling power dynamics and is deeply afraid of getting back into a similar situation, so when things with Aaron take a turn toward the romantic, she is deeply conflicted. Things I loved: I love a good enemies to lovers trope, and I enjoyed the romance of our hero and heroine traveling together to Spain. The spice level did not disappoint either. Things I didn't love: unfortunately a lot of things took me out of the moment while reading it. There were a lot of parallels to The Hating Game, beyond just sharing romance genre tropes. It's not uncommon (or wrong) for authors to be inspired by one another, but this felt like a bit much. In addition, there were some plot points that just felt wildly unbelievable. I'm more than willing to suspend my disbelief when reading romance, but at certain moments it became distracting. I'd still recommend this book to a patron or friend looking for a fun contemporary romance, but it wouldn't be in my top ten.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing a free ARC in exchange for honest review.